


I'll Eat You Whole To Remember, Love

by AnonymousPumpkin



Series: Fandom Prompt Fills [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: F/F, Non-Explicit Sex, literally just random adventure times, random adventure times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 13:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2733803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousPumpkin/pseuds/AnonymousPumpkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are no advantages to waking up every morning not knowing your lover's face. A character study and a sadly familiar story of paranoia and love and forgetting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Eat You Whole To Remember, Love

**Author's Note:**

> _Fandom: Skyrim  
>  _Prompt:__ 1) Character Question #23: What is your character’s biggest secret? 2) Staying in bed
> 
>  
> 
> __Character :_ Koki, Dunmer_

I’ll Eat You Whole To Remember You, Love

  
Their footsteps were the only sound on the mountain. They were faint and they did not echo. The inescapable chill penetrated Koki’s body so deeply that her very soul seemed to be shivering. Watching the path in front of her was boring and threatened to kill her with tedium. Instead she watched her breath float away from her in a white cloud, and she cursed this land for all its cold and snow and winding roads. On the edge of her memory, she danced as a different elf on scorched earth and cursed the dark sky. The path they had initially been followed was hidden beneath great dunes of snow and behind twisted trees and hardy shrubs that rose like wicked spirits from the white. It was abysmal.

They’d been hiking up and down this thrice-damned mountain range for the better part of a week, chasing some fat innkeeper’s half-cooked tale of bandits to be slaughtered and gold to be taken. So far all they’d found was a wasteland of rock and snow and goat shit. The wind had gotten colder as they’d ascended, and colder still when they managed to find a way to descend. The sky had been the same shade of grey for at least three days, and it showed no signs of clearing up in any timely capacity. Koki almost hoped they didn’t find the bandits they were searching for; she wasn’t sure she would be able to wield her weapons in any proficiency with her frozen fingers like wooden blocks. They’d purchased some hardier winter clothes a month or so ago (or, rather, she had bought hardier winter clothes and been teased rather mercilessly for it), and the thick wool mittens, itchy though they were, were probably the only reason she could feel her fingers at all.

  
“Look!”

It was the first either of them had spoken in hours, possibly all day. Koki forced her eyes up from the ground. It took her a few seconds to see what had gotten her companion so excited. The thin trail of smoke was only a few shades darker than the sky behind it, and she was impressed she had seen it at all. Her heart jumped in her chest, or rather it made a half-hearted gesture with that intention. The sight of smoke, so simple and plain, sent a rush of renewed energy and vigor through her body. Smoke meant fire and fire meant _people_. And if it didn’t mean people, then at the very least it meant warmth, and right now she would really settle for either. Wordlessly, their paces increased.

She almost tore off running down the invisible path, and probably would have if she didn’t think she would fall flat on her ass in the attempt. The dunes were slick and some were hollow, as she had already found out several times. The path took a startlingly steep turn, going down into what could probably be called a valley, if one loosened one’s definition of the word. She could not move too quickly without risking slipping to what would probably be her embarrassing and anticlimactic death. It infuriated her to be so close to something she desired and have to move slowly.

There was a new urgency in her careful descent, and there were no words eloquent enough to fully communicate how relieved she was when they reached the bottom of the cliff and turned the corner, and a tiny (truly it was pitiful) village sprung out of the rock like a patch of weeds. It was colorless and stony, and she may have walked straight past it if she hadn’t seen the smoke rising from the chimneys. Two dozen buildings at most, built from shapeless rock and rotting wood, contained by a waist-high wall of small-ish boulders, and a gate that looked to be held together by pure force of will and the desperate dreams of the inhabitants.

A man approached them long before they reached the gate. He wore no steel or iron, but his figure was impressive despite it. He towered easily over Koki, though that was no feat. He had a grim face that looked like it was carved from the mountain itself, and his eyes narrowed when they fell on her. He didn’t say anything, but she saw his jaw clench. She considered grinning at him, sure he would take her bare teeth as a challenge. She wanted a challenge. Anything to get her blood flowing. It was damned cold.

She didn’t provoke him, though. He guarded shelter, and food, and directions. She stopped when he demanded it and raised her hands to show she was, for the moment, unarmed. She also shifted her hip, pushing it out so he could see that she was quite capable of arming herself. Her daggers grinned at him in her stead, shimmering slightly without any source of light. She was rather proud of the enchantments she’d placed upon them, though she didn’t think this was the time or place to brag.

The gatekeeper gripped his sword with determination and, she noted, familiarity as well. He had training, however informal or long ago it may have been. “State your business here, traveler.” His voice was like thunder...but it was the thunder on the horizon, soft and almost inaudible but heavy with the promise of storm.

“You’ve stated it yourself.” She wiggled her fingers inside her mittens just to remind herself that they could move. His eyes watched the slight motion, paranoid. “Travel is our business...or part of it. The unpleasant part.”

He narrowed his eyes even further. They were almost shut now. It was an amusing look. He didn’t lower his weapon and she didn’t reach for hers. He had something she wanted, or he was guarding it at least. For that reason, she could play along.

(She had done far too much playing along since coming to this damned place.)

“What’s your business _here_?” he clarified, and a very important clarification it was. “Not often travelers come down this way, ‘specially not ones equipped as you are.”

“We’re chasing rumors of bandits,” she answered honestly. When she saw fear spring up on his face, she clarified, “Apparently, baseless rumors.”

She could not help the frown that pulled her mouth down and narrowed her eyes. She had a bitter taste in her mouth and swore if she ever saw the innkeeper who set them on this wild goose chase, she would feed him his own teeth. A week wasted and not a sovereign richer for it. “We were hoping to find shelter for the...night?” She paused. Was it even nighttime? She couldn’t tell. “If anyone here is willing, we are willing to provide coin in exchange for a bed and meal.”

The word “coin” held a great deal of persuasion here, as it generally did. The man’s eyes darkened and his mouth thinned. He looked over his shoulder at the small crowd that had gathered behind the gate (visitors truly were rare here), and a silent conversation was exchanged. Koki shivered. The strange telepathic talents of small communities were to be feared.

He turned back to them and nodded. “You may enter. But be warned...cause any trouble, and you’ll regret it.”

She bit her tongue and bit back her grin, and lowered her tingling hands. He stepped out of her way when she made to the gate, but he just watched when she threw all her ineffectual weight against it. He watched her struggle for several minutes and, just before she made up her mind to stick her knife in his throat, he reached over and pushed it open for her.

“I’m Kens,” he said.

“Charmed.”

His dark chuckle followed her for several minutes.

The townsfolk, few as they were, parted before them, eyeing Koki’s knives with the awe and apprehension that they deserved.

They ended up forgoing the meal entirely. Koki entered the inn. It was small and bland, and she spared it not a second glance. Practically running, she dropped the standard fare on the counter, having counted it in her palm before she even entered the door, and she marched into the nearest open door. She heard someone trying to call after her, asking if she needed this or would surrender that, and she ignored them.

She barely avoided closing the door on her companion, but by the time an apology would’ve been socially acceptable, she was already bending over to unlace her boots and social courtesy was the farthest thing from her mind. She undressed herself slowly and with a curious fervor. It took her a few minutes to get her boots off; her fingers refused to accept their newfound warmth. The ties of her coat were the next to go, untied with the fumbling grace of a child and the garment was discarded in a loving and shapeless pile just inside the door. She shed her belt of daggers as she lurched towards the bed, eager and exhausted. Behind her, heavy armor hit the ground with just as much grace, and a larger, warmer body followed in her footsteps, half a breath behind her.

At the start of her journey, or at literally any prior point in her life, Koki would’ve slit her own throat rather than share a bed with a human, but by now they had spent many a night huddled in a hollow tree trying to protect themselves from the brunt of a blizzard, and she’d found that her standards for accommodation had gone down.

Her mother would be horrified.

She didn’t bother stripping down any further than her street clothes before throwing herself face down onto the bed. It was hard and lumpy and smelled very faintly of cat piss, and she was pretty sure this was as good as life was ever going to get. She burrowed (as well as she could) into its (negligible) warmth and comfort.

“It has a _blanket_ ,” she whispered into the mattress, and pulled the thin thing about herself. It offered next to no heat, but its very existence was perfect in her mind.

Darkness came swiftly for her, and Koki was asleep far before she could think to kick off her second pair of boots. In her dreams, she knelt at the execution block again and stared into the face of the man who had been executed before her. His head had fallen face up into the bucket, and she wondered idly why no one had bothered to change out their buckets. The dead man’s milky eyes bulged and his hair was matted with fresh blood, and he began to speak to her in a voice not his own. It was a voice she knew, and a face she did not. He accused her of terrible things, of sacrilegious, unspeakable horrors she could not deny. The emotions came to her like a tidal wave, with plenty of warning but no chance for escape. She felt as if she was drowning in fear and she tried to stand up and run, but her legs were frozen, encased in snow that rose to her waist. She jerked away from him, crying out with a heavy tongue. She tried to claw her way out of the burning cold snow, but her arms were bound behind her back in thick cords of rope. She screamed, for her mother, for anyone who would help her. There was a crowd about her, gathered to watch her execution, and she tried to find their names. But, bored without their sport, they all walked past her and their eyes slid over her, for they did not know her.

A shadow swallowed the sky and let out a soul-wrenching roar.

And then her hands turned into cabbages and it all kind of went downhill from there.

The morning was far kinder. Koki woke to the sound of snoring and the weight of another’s body on top of hers. Her initial panic was interrupted by her mind’s tardy awakening thought, that thought was replaced by paranoia, and that paranoia was tinged with bitter fear. Her hand tightened around the knife beneath her pillow. She knew, she _knew_ who was atop her, but...but...

 _What if…?_ her mind whispered, and those two words burned her like a brand.

Koki was very slow and careful in turning over so as not to disturb whoever it was that shared her bed… It was a Nord woman, large and thick and warm and not unlike a sack of stones bound up in flesh; she was very heavy on Koki’s small frame. Yet she covered all of her without shame, and Koki felt no shame being crushed beneath her (it was extremely uncomfortable, but not shameful).

The woman snored softly and slept deeply. Her thick arm was like a lead weight on Koki’s chest, pinning her down. Her hand curled around her bony hip, leaving fingerprints on her grey skin. Her breath was rancid, like ale and morning breath and old meat. Her face was not comely, nor was it homely; her nose was large, her cheeks were carved with deep lines and scars, and her eyes were surrounded by dark circles and wrinkles like birds’ feet. Her blond hair was escaping from its braids, which once must have been intricate and perhaps even lovely. She was a stranger.

It was a futile effort (it always was), but Koki could not help scanning her mind, trying to find some name to put to this face. She had to know this woman...why else would she allow her to share her bed? Those cheeks, sunken and pale, should have tugged at her memory. Those lips, cracked and dry and marked by a very faint scar, should’ve engendered some emotion in her, anything from annoyance to affection to hatred. But there was nothing.

As if she knew she was being watched, the woman opened her eyes. They were pale and clear and cold. Her mouth twitched into what was neither a smile nor a frown. It was an acknowledgement, a greeting as casual as that between friends or shield-sisters.

“Elf.” Her voice was surprisingly light. It should have contrasted sharply with her grim, warrior’s face, but it actually fit her perfectly. There was no gravel or stone in this woman’s throat; her voice was strong and clear and spoke with an affectionate familiarity that sent a thrill through Koki’s chest. It tugged at her lips, imploring her to smile, but she did not.

“Nord.”

The woman pushed herself up, having no qualms at putting her weight on Koki’s slight frame to support herself. She waited until Koki pulled herself up as well, and then leaned in close. Her lips were just as rough as they looked, and the kiss she took was rougher. She pulled away quickly, either accustomed to or not caring about the stiffness with which her lover responded. She made as if to get up, and then decided against it. She leaned back heavily, letting out a huge, vocal sigh that bordered on a moan. The bed let out a soft yelp of protest at bearing her weight.

Her face meant nothing. Her body meant nothing. She was as memorable to Koki as a ball of soft clay, featureless and easily molded into some unrecognizable form. Koki did not know her broad nose, her gaunt cheeks, her pale eyes, her strong face. She did not know the way her mouth twitched into only half a smile or the manner in which she could make her hair frame her face in just a way so that she looked almost like a young maiden.

But she knew her. She knew the scar on her lip; Koki herself had given her in the brawl that had bought her respect and service. She knew the chip in the breast of her armor, her only distinguishing mark when they walked in silence along unknown trails. She knew the sound of her voice, surprisingly smooth and light and sure. These things she knew, and she kept them at the forefront of her mind. Her face had no name, no more than the post of the bed had a name, but that scar had a name and the chip had a name and the voice had a name.

The hands that found their way under her clothes had a name too. They traced over her comparatively few scars and poked at her comparatively plentiful bruises and stoked the fire that had sprung up inside her. They found the spot in her stomach where her lover’s identity sat in her guts, and pushed it up and up and up until her name fell from her lips like a prayer. Uthgerd took her own name from Koki’s mouth and swallowed it whole.

They had grown accustomed to taking their pleasure as quickly as possible. Stolen, heated kisses and quick, clothed tumbles behind stables or beneath twisted trees was their norm, and had been for all the months they’d been involved. The few times they _had_ a bed to sleep in, they were usually so exhausted they had no energy for any kind of intimacy, though that was not to say the desire was not there.

This morning was different, though. At first they pawed at each other like inexperienced children as per the usual, content to simply feel good and leave, but a shift started at some point after the sun rose, throwing a beam onto Koki’s back… Uthgerd’s kisses became gentler, Koki’s hands slowed in their ministrations, and their bodies shifted to a position more inclined to comfort. Koki found Uthgerd’s throat at her mouth; she could feel her heart pounding against her tongue, and her own skipped beats to trying to keep up.

The world seemed to shift to accommodate them. It became a safe, undemanding place that required nothing of them, at least for these few hours. No one knocked at their door, no emergency demanded their immediate attention. Their swords were within reach but still sheathed, resting as fitfully as their mistresses.

Koki leapt on the opportunity with gusto. She would forget as soon as she looked away, she feared, so she threw herself into memorizing just for the morning the curve of Uthgerd’s waist and the weight of her breasts and the taste of her sex. These things she remembered, and would until the end of her days.

They spent most of the morning in bed. Every time one of them found herself inclined to get up, the other dragged her back, Koki with a smirk and Uthgerd with a murmured challenge. Koki couldn’t remember a time they had had so much time together perhaps since the beginning. The constant buzz of anxiety that always gnawed at her skull, pressing against the backs of her eyes until she thought they would burst, dissipated, slain by tender kisses on the corners of her downturned mouth.

“We should get food eventually,” Uthgerd suggested, ever the voice of logic between the two of them. She was propped up on her elbows, hovering over Koki easily. Her hand spread over Koki’s stomach, poking at her ribs that had begun to show through her skin. “We’ll work ourselves to starvation at this point.”

Koki, preoccupied with staring as dreamily as a novel heroine into her eyes, almost didn’t hear her. She licked her lips and let out her harsh, gravel-y laugh. “Nonsense. I could do this all day.”

It was as if she were out to sabotage herself. Just as she spoke, her stomach growled loudly beneath Uthgerd’s hand, and the Nord laughed softly, her much more enchanting laugh.

“Is that so.” She tapped Koki’s ribcage thoughtfully, and pushed herself up, standing on her knees. “I would rather bed a beautiful elf than a skeleton.”

“Are you sure? I think the skeletons are a much better shot.”

Uthgerd pinched her and laughed, but did not relent. They compromised: they took their breakfast in bed. Koki was the one who pulled on clothes and ventured, dreamy and content, out into the inn. She hesitated in the doorway, torn between the desire to look back and the terror of what she would see.

“Well? _Go_. I’m hungry.”

Smiling and not looking back, Koki obeyed.

The innkeeper was red-faced and gruff when he handed her two plates of colorless, and surely tasteless, food. Koki promised payment when they were finished, but he brushed off her excuses.

Going back into the room was, somehow, harder than going back in.

It was stupid. It was irrational. She had more than thirty years now, plenty of time to eliminate her insecurities and fears. And yet she stood for a few minutes still, staring at the wood of the door with dread in her stomach. She knew it was futile, but she tried to conjure up the face she knew was waiting for her inside. She swallowed a cold lump of paranoia down, and nudged the door open with her foot. It creaked loudly.

“The conquering hero returns.”

The voice inspired warmth to blossom in Koki’s chest, and brought a smile to her face (her smiles always looked so sly and sarcastic, no matter how heartfelt). She almost tripped over the haphazard scattering of armor and clothing she had left the night before, narrowly avoiding cutting her foot open on a dagger half-unsheathed. She avoided looking up as long as she could, and when she did, her breath froze in her lungs. Her grip tightened on the plates she carried and her appetite soured.

An unfamiliar Nord woman was lying on the edge of the bed...lounging was a better term. Despite the lack of obvious danger, fear closed his fist around Koki’s throat. The woman had taken a thin blanket and wrapped it about her muscular shoulders in a domestic mockery of a cape. Her blonde hair was mussed and fell around her shoulders, kinked and waved in a manner that suggested it was often braided. Her nose was large and her cheeks were lined and her eyes were tired but warm with contentment. Her chest and neck were marked with soft pink and red spots...almost as if she had spent the past several hours being ravished and ravishing a particularly enthusiastic elven lover. She smiled at Koki, and it was beautiful.

“Are you going to hand me my food or just stand there?”

It took all of Koki’s strength to get her feet to move. She forced herself to be casual as she lowered herself onto the bed, balancing the plate of breakfast on her knee. She ate in quick bites like a starving man. Her initial impression had been correct: the bread was like doughy dirt, the meat was tough and salty, and the single boiled egg was rather grainy. It was a tasteless meal, but she ate it so quickly she didn’t taste it much anyway.

When her meal was finished, Koki pushed her plate onto the floor, and rested back against the hard mattress and the thin pillow. She stared at the ceiling and waited for her body to grow accustomed to the food. Perpetually on her mind was the Nord, who ate much slower and was content to ignore her while she ate.

She knew, she _knew_ logically that this was Uthgerd. There was no reason why she would have changed places with some other random stranger in the brief moments Koki was gone. She knew her...more than knew her, she _loved_ her. But there was that buzz again, anxiety and paranoia like a storm in her skull. She took a deep breath, trying to steady her own mind and slow her own heartbeat, but her fingers twitched with the desire to grab her knives, so far away…

A warm hand settled on top of Koki’s. She started and almost flinched away. The woman-- Uthgerd, she reminded herself, _Uthgerd_ \-- stared at her for a moment, thoughtful. She didn’t say anything, and after a few seconds of silence, leaned in and pressed her dry lips to Koki’s cheekbone. The gesture sent a little shock through Koki’s body, which burned particularly hot in her chest and stomach. Swallowing hard, she allowed herself to be pulled closer...and then actively tried to move as close to Uthgerd as was physically possible, desperate to steal some of the warmth her lover seemed to have in plenty. She hadn’t realized how cold she was until she wasn’t. Uthgerd drew her under the blanket, and they sat, Koki’s legs dangling behind Uthgerd and off the bed, Uthgerd’s arms around her shoulders.

Uthgerd just held her there, chin on her head, relaxed and patient. Gradually, Koki relaxed, struggling to reconnect with the familiarity and normalcy they had achieved earlier. Only when Koki was again soft and pliable did Uthgerd move, reaching up and tugging at Koki’s shoulder.

“Now, don’t you think you’re wearing a bit too much clothes?”

Koki smirked against her collarbone, and bit at one of the marks she’d left earlier. She pulled away and allowed herself to be kissed. This morning, this feeling, she felt she would always remember.

**Author's Note:**

> As it is not a common condition to have, I shall specify: Koki has acquired prosopagnosia . . . that is, face blindness. Her brain completely lacks the ability to recognize faces. She recognizes people based on secondary details, such as voice, body shape, etc.
> 
> Ugh. I actually wrote this three months ago and forgot to post it, and then when I went to post it yesterday, I realized the end sucked so I rewrote it. It still sucks...but here we are.


End file.
